PenfoldsGrangeBin95RedWine201675cl

ThePenfolds Grange has become an icon of South Australia and is perhaps Australia’s most celebrated wine with an unbroken line of vintages from the experimental 1951. Created by Max Schubert after a visit to Bordeaux where a wine ‘capable of staying alive for a minimum of twenty years’ first inspired him.

The 2016 is a blend of 97% Shiraz, 3% Cabernet Sauvignon sauced from Barossa Valley, McLaren Vale, Clare Valley and Magill Estate. These grapes have been aged for 18 months in 100% new American oak hogsheads for the intensity and finesse also displayed in The Grange.

The development of Max Schubert’s Grange is a modern tale of imagination, a battle against the odds of redemption. It began with a side trip to Bordeaux in 1949, where a wine ‘capable of staying alive for a minimum of twenty years’, first entered Schubert’s mind. His first experimental vintage in 1951 began a new way of thinking that would eventually lead to a signature wine style, but not before Grange was discredited and Max Schubert forced to make the wine in secrecy.